1.1 What is Oracle BI Discoverer?

Oracle BI Discoverer enables business users at all levels of the organization to make faster and more informed business decisions. Using any standard Web browser, you have secure and immediate access to data from both relational and multidimensional data sources. Oracle BI Discoverer provides a business view to hide the complexity of the underlying data structures, enabling you to focus on solving business problems.

Oracle BI Discoverer consists of several integrated components that work with the Oracle database to give you a complete and integrated Business Intelligence solution.

1.2 Why should I use Oracle BI Discoverer?

Comparing Oracle BI Discoverer with other ways of accessing data that you might have used helps you understand why Discoverer is so powerful. Imagine that you want to analyze information in a database. In the past you typically had to:

understand databases and a programming language called SQL to find the data (or ask a programmer to find the data for you)

wait a long time for the data to be retrieved

reformat the data to analyze it (often by exporting the data to a spreadsheet package, graphics package, or statistical analysis package)

With Oracle BI Discoverer, you simply open a workbook containing the data you want to see and start analyzing. You do not have to know anything about databases. You do not have to wait a long time to get information. You do not have to use another application to analyze your data.

access data quickly without waiting for the computer to search through the entire database

view data in a familiar spreadsheet-style format that is easy to read and understand

analyze data using a variety of powerful techniques including:

drilling up and down through data

finding data that meets certain conditions or that falls within ranges that you specify

sorting data

prepare reports showing the results of your analysis

share data with other people, and in other applications (for example, Microsoft Excel)

1.3 How do I access information using Oracle BI Discoverer?

You use Oracle BI Discoverer to analyze information by creating and using Discoverer workbooks and worksheets.

A workbook is simply a named collection of worksheets. Each worksheet contains the data and graphs that you require to extract business information from the database. Each worksheet contains the result of a query.

Worksheets can show information:

as data points in cells (formatted as tables or as crosstabs)

as graphs (Oracle BI Discoverer supports many different graph types)

You can create and analyze worksheets using Discoverer Plus and Discoverer Desktop.

You can view, analyze, and customize worksheets using Discoverer Viewer and Discoverer portlets.

1.4 What is a typical workflow with Oracle BI Discoverer?

As you become more familiar with Oracle BI Discoverer, you will find a workflow that suits you best.

The result is a collection of worksheets and graphs that persuasively support your business decisions.

1.4.3 Stage 3: Sharing data with other people

When you have retrieved and analyzed data, you probably want to share your results with other people at your organization, with customers, or with business partners.

If the people you want to share data with also use Oracle BI Discoverer:

you can share your Discoverer workbooks and worksheets with them (for more information about sharing workbooks, see "About sharing workbooks")

Discoverer Plus users can open worksheets and save their own personal copy to the database. Discoverer Viewer users can view worksheets, and save their own personalizations (personalizations do not affect the source worksheets in the database).

you can use Discoverer Portlet Provider to publish worksheets as portlets on Oracle Portal pages (for more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Guide to Publishing Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Portlets)

If the people you want to share data with do not use Oracle BI Discoverer, you can export Discoverer worksheets in popular application formats (for example, Microsoft Excel, HTML). For more information about exporting worksheets, see "About exporting Discoverer data to other applications".

This Oracle BI Discoverer component runs over the internet or intranet inside a web browser. Use Discoverer Viewer to analyze the data in worksheets created in Discoverer Plus, and Discoverer Desktop. You can personalize worksheets (for example, by repositioning items) and save your changes.

For more information about Discoverer Viewer, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer.

These Oracle BI Discoverer components run over the internet or intranet inside a web browser. Use Discoverer Portlet Provider to include Discoverer worksheets as areas (or portlets) within existing Oracle Portal pages. Discoverer Portlet Provider enables you to publish the following types of Discoverer portlet:

This Oracle BI Discoverer component is a Windows-only application that enables you to build new worksheets to analyze data from relational data sources. The worksheets you create in Discoverer Desktop can be used in Discoverer Plus, Discoverer Viewer, and Discoverer portals.

For more information about Discoverer Desktop, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Desktop.

Oracle BI Discoverer Administrator

This Oracle BI Discoverer component is a Windows-only application used by the Discoverer manager to create and maintain a business oriented view of relational data. Discoverer Administrator provides wizards and dialogs to:

control access to data

manage summary data

administer batch scheduling

For more information about Discoverer Administrator, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer.

Oracle BI Discoverer End User Layer (EUL)

The Discoverer End User Layer component is a repository for storing and retrieving definitions of objects used when querying relational data sources.

For more information about the End User Layer, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer.

Oracle BI Discoverer Catalog

The Discoverer Catalog component is a repository for storing and retrieving definitions of user objects when querying multidimensional data sources.

1.6 Who is the Discoverer manager and what do they do?

The Discoverer manager is the person in your organization that is responsible for setting up and maintaining Discoverer. In some organizations, the Discoverer manager also creates predefined workbooks for Discoverer users.